Elie Wiesel’s picture was taken from Radio France.
Both Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Elie Wiesel died on a July 2. The former in 1778 and the latter in 2016.
A Swiss-born philosopher, writer, and theorist, Mr. Rousseau’s writings “inspired the leaders of the French Revolution and the Romantic generation” (https://shorturl.at/cHU46). Bambi studied Rousseau in high school. Indeed, she cannot think of him without remembering her inspiring fantastic professors of philosophy and French literature in Beirut, Lebanon. Of note, one of her older posts (shown further below) paid tribute to one of them, namely Ms. Nadia Jammal. May her memory be eternal.
As for Mr. Elie Wiesel, he was a Romanian-born American writer/philosopher, and university professor. He survived the Holocaust and authored 57 books, which where mostly written in French as well as in English. In 1986, Wiesel received a Nobel Peace Prize (https://shorturl.at/KMNOP). Bambi discovered this author, on her own, when she was in CEGEP (Québec’s college system). Her heart was profoundly moved by his deep humanity, despite his horrifying experiences as a prisoner in the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentrations camps. As reported in Radio-France (https://shorturl.at/KMNOP), he was “so close to death, so often…” . Indeed and thankfully, Wiesel survived the concentration camps where he had been deported in 1944. He was 15 years old at that time. However, tragically, he lost his mom, dad, and one of his sisters there.
To conclude this post, which aimed to share with you seven quotes from Rousseau and Wiesel respectively, Bambi will end in music. The eternal song chosen is about our shared humanity. It is entitled Quand les hommes vivront d’amour [When Men Will Live for Love]. It is from the late Mr. Raymond Levesque. The latter Canadian singer-song writer died two years ago. May his memory and artistic legacy be eternal. The song is nicely performed by Mr. Jay Lemay in what looks like a slightly slower rhythm than the original. Bambi thanks Lemay for making his video not only public on YouTube, but also sub-titled in English for the convenience of her readers. May love have the final word in the entire world, including Canada.
Rousseau
“I prefer liberty with danger than peace with slavery”.
“It is much more valuable to always have people’s respect than to occasionally have their admiration”.
“What wisdom can you find greater than kindness?”.
“To be sane in a world of madman is in itself madness”.
“To write a good love letter, you ought to begin without knowing what you mean to say, and to finish without knowing what you have written”.
“Those that are most slow in making a promise are the most faithful in the performance of it”.
”Insults are the arguments employed by those who are in the wrong”.
Wiesel
“The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference“.
“Human beings should be held accountable. Leave God alone. He has enough problems”.
“Someone who hates one group will end up hating everyone – and, ultimately, hating himself or herself“.
“Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must – at that moment – become the centre of the universe”.
“I’m a teacher and a writer; my life is words. When I see the denigration of language, it hurts me, and it’s easy to denigrate a word by trivializing it”.
“Religion is not man’s relationship to God, it is man’s relationship to man”.
“Religion is a very personal thing for me. Religion has its good moments and its poor moments”.
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